The Flyers Traded for Defenseman Mark Streit

The Flyers began their offseason re-modeling of the roster by trading for a veteran defenseman Wednesday.

The Flyers shipped a fourth round pick in the 2014 NHL Draft to the New York Islanders for Mark Streit.

Streit, 35, is a pending unrestricted free agent, but the Flyers now own his rights and will have an opportunity to sign him to a new deal before he hits the free agent market July 5 and could sign with any of the 29 other teams in the NHL. He made $4.1 million last season as a member of the Islanders.

“Mark is a player we would have had interest in on July 5th,” said Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren. “We now have exclusive negotiating rights and we are hopeful that we can get an agreement in place prior to him becoming an unrestricted free agent.”

The Flyers also sent Shane Harper to the Isles.

Interesting how SanFilippo twice (once in the story’s sub-head) referred to the Flyers’ off-season remodeling. This is probably the first of many moves on Homer’s PS 3 controller.

The trade for-and-sign is a tactic previously used on Scott Hartnell, Kimmo Timonen, Ilya Bryzgalov… and Dam Hamhuis, who never signed here.

He’s older, but he’s very durable, rarely missed a game in his NHL career. Also, if you combine his Swiss League stats and his NHL stats for this year he has 13 goals and 53 points. It’s the defender the Flyers needed granted he’s only gonna be here for 2 or 3 years if he signs.

Not happy with this move at all. This guy wants to be paid $5-6 mil/year for at least 4 years (he just turned down a 3year/$15 mil offer from NYI). That’s an awful lot of money for a guy who’s on the wrong side of his career. Will he help on the powerplay? Sure. But the Flyers have more pressing needs. Signing a 35 year old defenseman to an over-inflated contract isn’t the answer to the Flyers’ woes, especially considering that the Flyers will be locked into the contract regardless of whether the guy gets hurt or decides to retire (see Pronger).

In my opinion (for what it’s worth), the Flyers should be trying to get younger, especially if the intention is to keep this core intact. Go out and get some younger guys like Michael Stone or David Rundblad from Phoenix, or other similar younger defensemen who have the potential to put up solid offensive numbers while still playing defensively sound in their own zone. In doing so, hang on to the young core already in place and the Flyers should compete for the Cup within the next few years.

The problem with the Flyers front office is that they always go with the win now mentality and it obviously hasn’t worked. I don’t care that they’ve been to the Cup Finals 6 times since 1975. How many have they won? Zero. Their plan obviously is not working. They need to stop blowing up the team every 3 or 4 years when their shortsighted plans don’t pan out and let these guys mature together. Unfortunately, it’ll never happen as long as Snider and Co. are running the show.

I’m really starting to believe that I’ll never see the Flyers win the cup in my lifetime.

YEAH LET’S GO OUT AND GET YOUNG QUALITY D MEN. OTHER TEAMS WILL GIVE THEM AWAY! Bitch when he inks the contract. We gave up nothing to talk to him. He migh get 5 mil but also might have turned it down because they are a shit team an wants to win. Buy out bryz and sign him exact same cap hit. Buy out brierre look to get younger. Relax chief

1. I don’t see how waiting until they sign him changes anything. They traded for his rights because they thought there’s a good chance they could sign him. So what’s the difference if I bitch now or a few days from now?

2. We didn’t give up nothing to talk to him, we gave up a pick and a prospect. Granted, it’s a 4th rounder and a prospect that probably won’t see any ice time in the NHL but they’re still assets that we lose if he doesn’t sign. The 4th rounder isn’t even conditioned on him signing here. So, basically, if he decides to walk we traded the prospect and picks for nothing. So yes we did give up something.

3. You may be right, he may have turned down the NYI offer because he didn’t want to play there but I highly doubt it was because the islanders are a shit team. In fact, the Islanders are on the upswing and will be a competitive team next season. Regardless, $5 million is still way to much to pay for a guy on the wrong side of 30. If you’re going to pay him that kind of money you should have paid Carle.

4. Part of the reason they’re buying out these players is to free up cap space so they they’re cap compliant and part because they’ll need the $ to resign guys like Giroux, Schenn, Read, and Couturier, all of which need new contracts after this year, and all of which are going to command serious $, especially Giroux. So, I don’t understand why’d they clear up space by buying out bad contracts only to go and give out another one. It makes no sense. If it was to address a major need for the Flyers, fine, but this guy is not leading them to the cup finals next season.

5. You can absolutely get good young prospects from teams like Phoenix who are loaded with them. Phoenix needs something the Flyers have an abundance of…forwards. With the right mix of picks and forward prospects you could get a decent defensive prospect. You can’t, however, if you give away your picks for nothing like Homer loves to do .

So yeah I’ll relax when the Flyers actually win something this century.

“Flyers will be locked into the contract regardless of whether the guy gets hurt or decides to retire (see Pronger).”

The flyers can gain salary cap space by placing Pronger on long-term injury reserve as long as he doesn’t retire. They still have to pay him of course but that doesn’t matter as long as it’s not against the cap.

Also, good young defenseman with Streit-esque potential don’t just grow on trees. It’s not like the Flyers haven’t been trying to find them. The organization just isn’t good at developing defenseman so they might as well try and get someone good. This team can be good and contend for a cup next season. They just need some upgrades. Streit is one of those.

What I meant was that Street is looking for a 3-4 year deal which would would expire when he’s 39-40. Why would risk signing a guy to an over 35 contract when there’s a good chance that he probably won’t play out the contract (there aren’t a whole bunch of 40 year olds playing in the NHL) and you’ll still be on the hook for the money? Yes, they can put him on LTIR if he gets hurt but it still jams you up if you want to make any off season moves since you can only go 10% over the cap in then off season and must be cap compliant by then start of the season. You cannot put the injured player on LTIR until then season starts so essentially by signing him you risk carrying his $5 million +if he gets hurt) plus Prongers $5 mil which they’re on then hook for for another 4*5 years. That’s $10 million in cap space that you’d have to carry in the off season which would severely limit your ability to make off season moves.

You’re right, good defenseman with Streit-esque potential don’t grow on trees but you had a defensemen with better upside than Street in Carle and you let him walk. If you were gonna go after an guy like Streit you should have just Carole who is younger and in my opinion, more skilled than Streit.

You’re right Streit is an upgrade on defense on this team which is a sad indication of how bad the Flyers defense really is. Although he is an upgrade he’s not what they need. IMO, they’re wasting cap space that could be better spent elsewhere.